<p>“We don’t need no education.”… …“all in all it’s just a-nother brick in the wall”. That Floyd song has been running through my mind all day as D has o-fficially imploded. Precise charges that left no mess or bother, just a moment of collapse and an aftermath of near total destruction of her college list. I could have missed it but I was there when it happened. When the moment of recognition hit her that she did NOT have to do this to have a great college experience. When she breathed a sigh of relief and said that a thousand pound weight was now gone from her shoulders. When she said that maybe now she can enjoy her senior year.</p>
<p>The last few days we were engaged in the process of lining out work to be done , deadlines, which essays would fit where, short answers ,supplements, merit scholarship apps and more essays, honors college apps and more essays, graded analytical papers when she just hit the wall. Much like some others have felt recently, D has just had it. </p>
<p>She never wanted the selective admissions rat race, not to mention the added hell of the merit aid lottery at some schools . She just wanted a good solid school that set her up well for wherever her interests may take her without breaking the bank in the interim. Grad or professional school will certainly give her a lawn and leaf bag full of debt to contend with, and UG doesn’t need to contribute much if anything to the bag.</p>
<p>It is so easy for a high achieving child to succumb to the allure of competitive college admissions. It’s especially easy for a high achieving , competitive kid with a willing accomplice. I’ll have to see how this shakes out over time, but more than likely - she’s out of the game.</p>
<p>D’s plan as of now is that she will concentrate on schools that have no supplement or a de minimus supplement , zero additional essays, and only those that grant merit aid on the basis of your common application and SAT/ACT/GPA/Rank statistics alone. Unfortunately, that plan eliminates the schools that match her statistics. She seems to consider it a fair trade-off.</p>
<p>I’ll let the dust settle before I wade back in.</p>
<p>My first initial reaction is: good for her! And that she might ultimately change her mind (that would be the teenage mind - a rather fickle thing which is apt to be rather chameleon like!). Honestly, if she’s happier doing the college app process this way and being stress free, then she should be. </p>
<p>I’ll bet she does those first no-fusss, no-muss apps and then realizes that hmmm, that wasn’t too bad and maybe I’ll branch out just a little bit more. And she’ll have decided that on her own which truly gives her ownership of the process.</p>
<p>Even if she doesn’t do any more apps, she’s learned a valuable growing-up lesson here: she can take control of her life and make positive decisions. This is the sign of an independent person. </p>
<p>Of course, it’s a little tough for the parent who may be just a wee bit more vested in this process but it really is a good sign that she’s making these decisions and handling it herself.</p>
<p>Good luck - I look forward to seeing how it actually shakes out.</p>
<p>I agree with Fredo that once your D starts filling in apps, she won’t find this so overwhelming, and she may yet apply to those colleges that right now seem a bit more of a reach. She has over two months before ED/EA apps are due, and over 3 months before RD apps are due.<br>
If she has a rolling admission app to do, ask her to do that one. And once it is done, you can suggest that she might re-use some of the materials for a few other apps. Or ask her to fill out the rolling admission app plus one that is a good safety (i.e. that she likes as well as is likely to be admitted into).
Remind her that she need only ask a couple of teachers for multiple recs, so she might as well play safe and give them a whole batch of recs (with stamped and addressed envelopes( at the same time. If she ends up not applying, it won’t be any loss. My S did that and told his teachers to hang on the recs until he knew the outcome of his EA app. As soon as he heard, he told the teachers to discard the rec forms.</p>
<p>Curmudge - I will likely be in the minority, but I can really feel - all the way through cyberspace - how heavy that thousand pound weight could have felt. With common app + supplements + extra essays + honors college apps + special merit apps + prepping for special merit interviews, for not one but several schools… that is a LOT.</p>
<p>She will be in the running for admission to a slew of great schools with the common app alone. And for some of them, merit aid with nothing futher beyond the common app (ok, maybe a few easy supplements).</p>
<p>Now, I don’t know if that set of common app schools intersects just a bit or quite a bit with her/your original Master List of Possibles. If there’s a good intersection, then she’s done. If it’s leaving some important schools out of the mix, there will still be time.</p>
<p>It’s very important for her to do that common app and those de minimus supplements early, as Early Bird Gets Worm for merit aid at many of these schools. So… she can follow her plan. Once she has done so, that thousand pound weight will be gone. Gone! GONE!!</p>
<p>She may be re-energized to do another one or another few of schools she really laments missing out on. She may not.</p>
<p>Remember Evil Robot? He anguished and eventually chose the school which was a little lower than his stats (Vandy) due to merit aid anyway. She may be just taking a shortcut to that same outcome. It’s all good.</p>
<p>Curmudge - from the other side, my daughter’s college counselor is very wise and experienced - she has a few hard and fast rules
All apps have to be into the office by Dec 1, completely finished. Of course, most of the rolling schools are long gone by then, and last year, because of the days of the week, the deadline was Nov 28</p>
<p>2) They will only package and send 6 applications - when I was at your stage, and a little before, I thought that was harsh (and granted, you could probably fudge Alabama and Auburn), but now I see the wisdom - a focused kid will have less stress and do better apps - 2, 2 and 2 or or 2, 3 and 3 - if she can really project what she wants, it will be much easier</p>
<p>3) Common App, first and foremost - counselor won’t take college’s own app unless there is some overwhelming reason (special scholarship, or don’t take common app) not to use it - makes it much easier.</p>
<p>If it is any consolation - DD’s last outburst of angst and tinkering with the list last year, was just about this time, for just about the same reasons - she got it down to only 3 supplementals, and she only wrote one. One of Dart’s great advantages was it requires NO supplementals - all about those numbers. Univ of Rich got dropped because of the complexity of the merit scholarship apps, you get the picture.</p>
<p>Still she can only go to one school - 2 reaches, 2 merit schools, 2 safeties (?OOS Honors Colleges), 1 ultimate safety, perhaps? It will work, those 20 school lists are for a different kind of kid.</p>
<p>Oh, and just to make your day, if she is repeating ACT or SAT or needs to make any other visits, expect another meltdown - it won’t be pretty.</p>
<p>For all of us with smart but slothful students; ie: BOYS; your note was a breath of fresh air. Sometimes it seems like high achieving is easy-peasy, bring on ten more apps, please. You wrote a great reality check.</p>
<p>When my hot-house flowers implode, I try to give them ALL the control. Works a treat. I quickly state my agenda but I also give them the power to ignore that agenda. Chances are they take 50 to 80% on board.</p>
<p>There are heaps of 1000 pound weights to face down in a high acheiving adult life. There’s no harm in letting her give this coping strategy a try for this particular 1000 pound weight. </p>
<p>Keep in mind, the implosion might be about something completely unrelated. She is a teenager, after all.</p>
<p>This was my S’s plan (unbeknownst to me, but beknownst to him)–rolling admit to UMich. Got in. Had merit but we didn’t know, and it is not based on anything extra, so no extra work for it. ED app to no. 1 school. Accepted into MIch late Oct. As ED announcement approached, I kept nagging to get a start on other apps. He resisted. Why, it turns out, as soon as he got Mich acceptance, he’d decided it was that or ED school. Wasn’t going to do any others. </p>
<p>Didn’t tell me this till long after :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I have to agree with cangel, more meltdowns are possible. </p>
<p>My D hit the wall last month and boy, did it snowball. She talked herself out of half the schools she “loved” and out of re-taking the ACT and some SAT IIs necessary for class placement.</p>
<p>Once she returned to school and got back into the mad swing of things, she decided to stay the original course. We’ll see how long that lasts.</p>
<p>Cur
I was about to say ‘if I had to go thru this again’ and then I remembered- I do Anyway I agree with Fredo, once she gets some work done, she’ll feel revitalized and feel up to tackling more. I don’t know how many schools she has on her list, but what about doing some serious pruning and leave perhaps one at the top- Bowdoin or the like. S’s tactic this year is to put together a small list and really work on those apps- including visits, contacting professors etc. Your d is so qualified and talented, I hate to see her not apply to at least one top school.</p>
<p>I agree with others that, this,too, may pass. She may come back to her original plan or this may be a permanent way of pruning her list - kids who are not hung up on getting into the most competitive college they could possibly get into, will eventually find their own way into what is best for them - I know a young lady who got the “Golden Ring” - Yale EA, but she’s leaving for Duke tomorrow.</p>
<p>I also stand by the notion that she will have good choices with a shorter list, and this is a better way of pruning the list than getting 7 acceptances and drawing out of a hat in April.</p>
<p>Finally, I know that merit aid has been of concern - the only reason I can think of that I would press her (after a couple of weeks to simmer down) is if you re-run your speculative numbers, and still have real worries about her having reasonable choices from both her desires and from the financial aid standpoint, if she cuts the list down to fewer schools. If you think that there is a real chance that she will be unhappy, or “stuck” because of finances - then in a couple of weeks spell it out to her - every essay (I think she will find when she gets rolling that the paperwork isn’t so bad, it is those darn essays) is worth about $20000 per year in aid, those essays are the difference in going and not going OOS. Then she can make an informed and less emotional decision about how many papers to push.</p>
<p>Fit IS important, but a lot of “fit” between similar schools is how well the child talks herself into the place - it may seem shortsighted to us, but accepting the Common App, not requiring any supplementals, may make a particular college seem much more like “her kind of place”. It would be scary, except that if they go into their choice with a positive attitude, that school will rapidly become the only obvious choice - and I think the positive attitude improves the likelihood of them being satisfied as freshmen.</p>
<p>Cur – from everything you’ve posted about Mudgerella, I have a pretty good idea that she has a very good head on her shoulders (not just academically), and a lot of determination. I know about these Texas HS basketball players – they’re petty tough cookies (my sainted Mother, Pampa High School, Class of 1946). You and I both know that it you try to cajole her right now she’ll probably end up at Tyler Community College. It’s still relatively early in the process this year – let her enjoy the freedom that comes from blowing the college list off for now, and I won’t be a bit surprised if she comes back around (at least in part) by the end of September. Good luck.</p>
<p>Consider Lewis and Clark. Matches the description on both the common app and the merit money. AND they take EA applications in mid-November and answer in January, with the merit money. They’re a pretty good school, too. Portland is a great city.</p>
<p>My D felt much the same way about the whole process. She applied to five schools (L&C, Reed, Wesleyan, Bard, and Swarthmore), used the common app, wrote three (total) supplemental questions. It doesn’t seem to have harmed her college experience any. (Bard is another low-key possibility too; they have an “instant answer” day in the fall, if a trip to NY is a possibility.)</p>
<p>I come down with “this too will pass.” And after she gets back to school and these things are topics of conversation among her friends she’ll relax and revisit the entire issue. </p>
<p>Only you know your daughter best, of course, but my sons always varied between “back off, Mom” and “don’t you care what happens?”, sometimes in the same 24 hour period. :)</p>
<p>Chances are it is only the parents who will be disappointed by this turn of events. Here on CC, with every parent seemingly in it up to our elbows…but kids have their own plans, their own limitations, their own learning to do, and (thank God) their own lives to live.</p>
<p>The kid who I envy the most among my son’s friends? The one who picked out all his own schools, went on 2 visits that he could get to on his own, managed all his own apps, and took the SAT once. Told his parents he didn’t want their help. Yes he made some mistakes along the way, and missed a deadline or two. And he is perfectly happy with where he is going. He wants to be a dentist - and Ill bet a million dollars that he’ll make it.</p>
<p>For some reason I take a special interest in mudgie. Seems as though many of us do. So here are some thoughts.</p>
<ol>
<li>She will lead the life she will lead whereever she goes to school. Studies show that.</li>
<li>That being true, what is the point of trying for the competitive schools? Answer, only if it will give a kid an experience that will benefit them and stay with them, beyond any material success.</li>
<li>So for mudgie, is there an experience she would get from a competitive school she can’t get elsewhere, or would benefit her enormously?</li>
<li>I hazard a guess that experience, if it exists, would be a) hanging with kids who are as sharp as her and teachers who aren’t in awe b) getting out of Texas for a while.</li>
<li>Sounds like she wants to get out of Texas anyway.</li>
<li>So as for the teachers and the kids. I am not going to pull my punches. I do believe the top schools have a higher percentage of sharp faculty and kids. On average. It would be silly to say that isn’t true. But sharp faculty and kids, as the recent Newsweek article points out, are found at more and more schools.</li>
<li>Therefore.</li>
<li>As long as mudgie will find challenging professors and equal classmates in sufficient numbers, it may not matter - within limits - where she goes.</li>
<li>But that’s not all…in my humble opinion, there is still the issue that later in life she might wish she at least gave it a shot.</li>
<li>So, if you, knowing her, think there’s some chance she should give it a shot, then wait. IMHO this is a classic case of too many combinations and permutations that she faces, because of her talents, uniqueness, and the financial aid issues. Narrow that list of colleges to the ones she is willing to apply to and just two that require extra work, either because a dream reach with good financial aid that just might come through, or because a high match with merit aid. Do all the homework yourself on what they take, deadlines etc. Then be ready. Maybe she will want to give it a shot.</li>
<li>If mudgie resembles my pistol pants D at all, a melt-down is just a precursor to buckling down, as long as I stay out of the way.</li>
</ol>
<p>I completely understand how your D feels- and how you feel. It is a difficult, frustrating and competitive process. It really seems “not worth it” a lot of the time. I think S feels the same way, but he is on the recruiting treadmill. Of course, who can tell who is really interested in him at this point? He keeps throwing out things like “I think I’ll apply to Mary Hardin Baylor” or “I don’t see Jarvis Christian on my list”. This is his way of saying what your D is saying- “Whoa. Where did I sign up for THIS?” In the meantime, his Chinese teammate is here at our house and just learned today that there is a Common App and that you can do it online. (God forbid these kids would listen to their college counselor or look at their school’s excellent college counseling website). The Chinese boy is excited that his parents have agreed that U of Chicago is an acceptable school and will “count” as an Ivy for their purposes.</p>
<p>She’s oddly enthused. I think the taking control issue, and then seeing if I’d overreact and grab the wheel back from her seems to be the winner. She understands our financial need to spread the applications out for the merit lottery so she has me searching out schools that meet her “no hassle” criteria that she may have overlooked before, or discarded before. I have found a couple that, for what seemed to me to be silly reasons at the time, didn’t make the last “final” cut. Schools that she really liked but…Also some schools that were on the floor because of their app requirements have not been completely ruled out.</p>
<p>She has asked practical questions. "Dad, if I get in to “Wonderful Good Fit” college and it costs us $5,000 a year after aid AND I get into “Favorite But Still Unknown College” and it costs us $17,000 a year after aid, can I still go to “Favorite”? Yes, honey. You can. It may mean loans but that is a reasonable choice as “Favorite” has a better track record for getting students into the grad and professional programs you aspire to attend. That and the differences in the schools makes it worth it.</p>
<p>I think that after a full day of pondering I have come to the conclusion that I was poorly prepared and our school was poorly prepared and therefore D is poorly prepared for the selective school app process. Not for the schools themselves. She’s as prepared as anyone. Just for the selection process.</p>
<p>I told W tonight that I had fully prepared myself to help my kid choose among several nice in state schools and second/third tier relatively local (one state away) private schools. I told her that after all I’ve learned I would be ready for the next kid. She reminded me that D was an only child.</p>
<p>Teen agers can go from 0 to fifty in opposing directions with little warning, showing support without throwing up walls and corralling them in is a good approach…A smart kid will figure this out…keep notes to share with your grandchildren some day.</p>
<p>So for mudgie, is there an experience she would get from a competitive school she can’t get elsewhere, or would benefit her enormously?</p>
<p>Alum, as Mudgie is interested in neuroscience, there are research opportunities and community introductions a reasonably large competitive school with a med school readily offers. No question about that. Nothing to do with getting out of Texas. Well worth the stretch IMHO.</p>
<p>Mudgie will get it sorted for herself. We can hold her accomplice’s hand…for another…what is it…eight months??</p>
Anyway I agree with Fredo, once she gets some work done, she’ll feel revitalized and feel up to tackling more. I don’t know how many schools she has on her list, but what about doing some serious pruning and leave perhaps one at the top- Bowdoin or the like. S’s tactic this year is to put together a small list and really work on those apps- including visits, contacting professors etc. Your d is so qualified and talented, I hate to see her not apply to at least one top school.</p>